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Severe drought can affect a forest's growth for up to four years, a period during which it is less effective at removing carbon

A stressed forest in the southwestern United States

from the atmosphere, a new study reports in the journal Science. Standard climate models have assumed that forests and other vegetation bounce back quickly from extreme drought, but that assumption is far off the mark, the researchers say. Looking at data from more than 1,300 forest sites dating back to 1948, they found that living trees took an average of two to four years to recover and resume normal growth rates after droughts ended. Frequent droughts in places like the western U.S. could significantly impact the ability of forests to sequester carbon, the study found. Researchers aren't sure how drought causes these long-lasting changes, but they say there are likely three causes: Loss of carbohydrate and foliage reserves may impair growth; pests and diseases may accumulate in drought-stressed trees; and lasting damage to vascular tissues impairs water transport.
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Gallery: The Wild Lands at Stake If Alaska’s Pebble Mine Proceeds

The proposed Pebble Mine in southwestern Alaska is a project of almost unfathomable scale. If the copper- and gold-mining project proceeds, the mine would cover 28 square miles and require the construction of the world’s largest earthen dam — 700 feet high and several miles long — to hold back a 10-square-mile containment pond filled with up to 2.5 billion tons of sulfide-laden mine waste. All this would be built not only in an active seismic region, but also in one of the most unspoiled and breathtaking places on the planet — the headwaters of Bristol Bay, home to the world’s most productive salmon fishery. In a photo essay, landscape photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum documents the lands and waters at risk from the project, whose fate is currently wending its way through the courts.Read more | View galleryPERMALINK

according to a United Nations report released today. The revised U.N. estimates counter previous projections, which had said that global population would peak at roughly 9 billion by 2050, then gradually decline. Most growth will occur in developing regions, the new report says, especially Africa, which is expected to account for more than half of the world’s population growth between 2015 and 2050. India is expected to become the most populous country, surpassing China around 2022. Nigeria could surpass the United States by 2050, which would make it the third-largest country in the world, the United Nations projects. PERMALINK

Roughly 40 percent of adults worldwide have never heard of climate change, according to an analysis of global climate change awareness and risk perception published in Nature Climate Change. The percentage of people unaware of climate change rises to more than 65 percent in developing countries such as Egypt, Bangladesh, and India, whereas only 10 percent of the public is unaware in North America, Europe, and Japan. The findings indicate that strategies for securing public engagement in climate issues will vary from country to country, the researchers say, because different populations perceive climate-related risks very differently. In many African and Asian countries, for example, climate risk is most strongly perceived through noticeable changes in local temperatures. "The contrast between developed and developing countries was striking," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and co-author of the study.PERMALINK

27 Jul 2015:
President Obama Announces Major New Limits on Interstate Ivory Trade

President Obama has announced strict new limits aimed at stemming the global ivory trade which, when implemented,

FWS crushed illegal ivory trinkets in Times Square.

would nearly ban all ivory trade within the United States. The measures also include new restrictions on when ivory can be exported to other countries. “We’re proposing a new rule that bans the sale of virtually all ivory across state lines,” Obama said at a press conference in Kenya on Saturday. Current laws in the U.S. are aimed at controlling the import and export of ivory, while allowing some legal trade among states — a loophole that many illegal ivory dealers have used to their advantage. The new regulation, expected to be finalized later this year, would restrict ivory trade between states to items that are over 100 years old or contain only very small amounts of ivory. The U.S. is estimated to be the world's second largest ivory market, with sales outpacing all nations except China.PERMALINK

The European Union met 8 percent of its electricity demand with wind power last year, up from roughly 7 percent in 2012,

Wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands

according to a report by the Joint Research Center, the European Commission's in-house science service. That's equal to the combined total electricity consumption of Belgium, Ireland, Greece, and the Netherlands, the report notes, and it is a heartening sign for the E.U. wind power sector, which had seen turbine installations decline in 2013. Denmark generated enough wind power to meet 40 percent of its electricity demand, and in Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, wind's share made up between 19 and 25 percent of final consumption. Fifteen other E.U. nations generated 4 percent or more of their electricity from wind. By 2020, wind energy will provide at least 12 percent of Europe's electricity, the analysis says. Globally, wind power has grown dramatically over the last two decades, soaring from 3.5 gigawatts in 1994 to roughly 370 gigawatts by the end of 2014. PERMALINK

Chinese researchers have constructed a type of synthetic coral that could help remove toxic heavy metals like mercury from

Microscope image of the coral-like structure

the ocean, according to a report in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science. Mercury can be especially toxic to corals because they very efficiently adsorb heavy metals, the scientists note. They took advantage of that ability to create a synthetic coral that can bind and remove mercury pollution in water. The coral-like structure is covered with self-curling nanoplates made of aluminum oxide — a chemical compound that can collect heavy metals. The scientists found that the synthetic coral structure could bind mercury 2.5 times more efficiently than aluminum oxide particles alone. According to the World Health Organization, up to 17 in every thousand children living in areas relying on subsistence fishing showed cognitive declines caused by eating mercury-contaminated fish.PERMALINK

With Camera Drones, New Tool For Viewing and Saving Nature

In a career spanning four decades, award-winning filmmaker Thomas Lennon has tackled topics as diverse as the Irish in America and a polluting chemical plant in China. But it was his current project — a short film about the Delaware River — that opened his eyes to what he sees as a revolutionary new tool for viewing the natural world: the camera drone. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Lennon — who produced a video of drone images from the Delaware for e360 — describes how drones are a major innovation that allows filmmakers to capture images from vantage points never before possible. “There’s an opportunity for visual excitement, but combined — and this is the key — with intimacy,” Lennon says. “And I think that can become a tool for artists as well as for environmentalists.” Watch video | Read interviewPERMALINK

Algae could replace corn as feed for cattle and other livestock, according to findings published in the Journal of Animal Science. Algae — hardy

Algae-based cattle feed

microorganisms that can grow in a variety of environments and laboratory settings — require less fertilizer, water, land, and herbicides than corn, and thus could prove to be an environmentally friendly alternative for livestock feed, researchers say. The materials used in the new study were remnants of algae grown and processed for other applications, such as cosmetics, cooking oil, and biofuels, and would otherwise have been burned as waste. The researchers found that even these pre-processed leftovers were able to provide the same amount of protein as corn, along with slightly more fat. Cattle in the study readily ate the algae at a variety of concentrations and maintained their body weight as well as corn-fed cattle. Researchers say the algal meal could be priced to compete with corn and could be on the market by 2016.PERMALINK

California almonds could become carbon-neutral or even carbon-negative if growers were to make full use of practices such

Almonds growing in an orchard

as shell, hull, and biomass recycling, according to new research in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. Eighty percent of the world's almonds come from the drought-stricken state, and production operations there have drawn much ire since studies showed that almonds are a particularly water-intensive crop. However, the new research shows that the energy and greenhouse gas footprints of almonds can be lessened by, for example, using shells, hulls, and orchard biomass to generate electricity or feed dairy cows. "Our research shows 1 kilogram of California almonds typically results in less than 1 kilogram of CO2 emissions," said author Alissa Kendall, which is "a lower carbon footprint than many other nutrient- and energy-dense foods."PERMALINK

nuclear generating capacity, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports. Nuclear power currently makes up slightly more than 2 percent of the country's total power generation, but the Chinese government has a goal of generating at least 15 percent of the nation's energy using non-fossil fuel sources by 2020. To help achieve this target, China plans to increase nuclear capacity to 58 gigawatts — more than doubling its current 23-gigawatt capacity — and to have an additional 30 gigawatts under construction by 2020. By the end of 2015, China is expected to surpass South Korea and Russia in nuclear generating capacity, and by 2020, it will generate more nuclear power than all nations except the U.S. and France. All of China's nuclear plants are located along the east coast and in southern parts of the country, near the country's most populous areas, but China has increasingly considered constructing reactors farther inland following the 2011 Fukushima disaster.PERMALINK

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Based on data collected from 413 scientists and 58 countries, the analysis found that sea surface temperatures, upper ocean heat content, and global sea level all achieved record levels in 2014. Four independent global data sets also indicated that 2014 global surface temperatures were the warmest on record. Earlier this year, NASA and NOAA released a similar study stating that 2014 was the warmest year on record based on 135 years of weather reports, and President Obama cited that finding in his 2015 State of the Union address. The new analysis confirms and extends these findings to multiple indicators of global climate change.PERMALINK

16 Jul 2015:
Most States Have Curbed Power Plant Emissions Ahead of EPA Rule

A large majority of U.S. states — 42 of 50 — have already cut power plant carbon emissions ahead of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, whose rules will be finalized next month, according to an analysis published this week. The plan requires each state to limit emissions from its power plants; to do this, many states have closed coal-fired plants and replaced them with natural gas power plants, which release less carbon dioxide. In fact, the report found, the 42 states that have already lowered power plant carbon emissions did so by an average of 19 percent between 2008 and 2013. The report was conducted by the sustainability advocacy group Ceres, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Bank of America, and four large utilities. “Most parts of the country are firmly on the path toward a clean energy future, but some states and utilities have a longer way to go, and overall the carbon emissions curve is not bending fast enough,” Ceres’ president, Mindy Lubber, said.PERMALINK

Interview: The High Environmental Cost of Illicit Marijuana Cultivation

As some U.S. states move to legalize marijuana, one issue has been largely ignored in the policy debates: the serious

Mary Power

environmental effects of the marijuana industry. A new paper co-authored by ecologist Mary Power details many of those impacts by focusing on marijuana cultivation in California, where most of the marijuana consumed in the U.S. is grown. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Power describes how California growers siphon off scarce water resources, poison wildlife, and erode fragile soils. What’s needed, she contends, is legalization of marijuana at the federal level, which would likely drive down marijuana prices. “As long as there is a market that will pay enough to compensate for the brutally hard work they do to grow this stuff in forested mountains,” she says, “then it will keep growing.” Read the interview.PERMALINK

15 Jul 2015:
'Buckyballs' May Be Able to Capture Carbon Dioxide, Research Finds

pull carbon from the atmosphere, a team from Rice University reports in the journal Energy and Fuels. They had previously found that buckyballs, also known as fullerene or carbon-60 molecules, have the ability to capture CO2 from high-temperature sources such as industrial flue gases and natural gas wells when combined with a polymer known as polyethyleneimine (PEI). In the new study, the researchers found that they could modify the PEI-enhanced buckyballs to capture carbon in lower-temperature environments. The advance may open the door to fine-tuning the enhanced buckyballs for a variety of carbon capture projects, the researchers say.
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measuring perceptions of international challenges. The survey found that a majority of people in Latin America and Africa are very concerned about climate change. In Peru and Brazil, where years of declining deforestation rates have slowly started to climb, three-quarters of people surveyed expressed anxiety about climate change. Sub-Saharan Africans also voiced substantial concerns about climate change, with a median of 59 percent saying they are very concerned. Indians (73 percent) and Filipinos (72 percent) are also particularly worried, the poll found. European nations and the U.S. are significantly less worried — only 42 percent of people in these areas say they are very concerned about the climate. In a list of potential global threats, climate change ranked sixth of seven for people surveyed in the U.S., the Pew Research Center found.PERMALINK

13 Jul 2015:
Australian Government Curbs Investments in Wind and Solar Energy

The Australian Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), a government-funded organization that invests in renewable energy, will no

Duncan Rawlinson/Flickr

Rooftop solar panels in Western Australia

longer invest in wind technology and small-scale solar projects, the government announced Sunday. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that the CEFC should invest in new and emerging technologies, and that wind and small-scale solar projects should instead be supported by the free market. Currently, one-third of CEFC funding, which totals roughly $10 billion, goes to solar projects, the majority of which are small-scale. The funding ban could increase prices for small-scale solar projects such as rooftop photovoltaic panel installations, especially for low-income households, renters, and public housing tenants. The ban on these investments is the latest in a series of actions by the Abbott government to make cuts in environmental initiatives, including two failed attempts to abolish the CEFC.PERMALINK

stored at depth rather than near the surface, NASA researchers explained this week in the journal Science. The findings shed light on mechanisms behind the so-called global warming "hiatus," in which air temperatures appeared to rise more slowly from 2003 to 2012. Warming in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean during that period started to appear at roughly 32 feet below the surface, the researchers say, and most of the heat was retained at depths of 300 to 1,000 feet. Their findings are based on two decades of ocean temperature records. “Overall, the ocean is still absorbing extra heat,” said Josh Willis, an oceanographer who coauthored the study. “But the top couple of layers of the ocean exchange heat easily and can keep it away from the surface for ten years or so. ... In the long run, the planet is still warming.”PERMALINK

09 Jul 2015:
Bird Fatalities at Wind Facilities Can Be Prevented With New Model, Study Says

The U.S. Geological Survey has developed a new model that it says can help predict and prevent bird fatalities at wind facilities before

Golden eagle

they are even built. The model takes into account three parameters, all of which can be measured before construction: the total footprint of the turbines, avian traffic near the facility, and collision probability. The model used golden eagles as a case study because their soaring and hunting behaviors make them susceptible to turbine collisions. Golden eagles also are long-lived and reproduce relatively late in life, which means wind farm fatalities could have particularly severe population impacts. For two years, the model successfully estimated eagle collisions at a newly constructed wind facility in Wyoming, the researchers say. The model's simplicity "allows wind facility developers to consider ways to reduce bird fatalities without having to collect a complicated set of data," said Leslie New, a researcher at Washington State University, who led the project.
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Interview: How to Get People To Care About Climate Change

Per Espen Stoknes, a Norwegian psychologist and economist, has been doing a lot of thinking about a question that has

Per Espen Stoknes

bedeviled climate scientists for years: Why have humans failed to deal with the looming threat posed by climate change? That question is the focus of his recent book, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming, in which he analyzes what he calls the psychological barriers that have made it difficult to deal realistically with the climate crisis. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Stoknes talks about these barriers and about how the discussion of climate change needs to be reframed. “We need a new kind of stories,” he says, “stories that tell us that nature is resilient and can rebound and get back to a healthier state, if we give it a chance to do so.”Read the interview.PERMALINK

trend in overall coal production, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports. Mountaintop removal (MTR) mines have recently been subjected to additional stringent regulations. For example, MTR operations planning to discard excess rock and soil in streams must now secure extra permits from the Environmental Protection Agency. Tennessee is considering banning some types of MTR mining altogether, and a federal stream protection rule expected to be proposed this summer could place additional limits on the practice. Lower demand for U.S. coal in general can be attributed to competitive natural gas prices, renewable energy growth, flat electricity demand, and environmental regulations, the EIA says. PERMALINK

By 2030, self-driving electric taxis could cut greenhouse gas emissions from car travel in the U.S. by up to 94 percent, if they were

Prototype of a small, self-driving electric taxi

to replace conventional personal vehicles, according to an analysis published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Autonomous taxis are projected to cut carbon emissions primarily through a process known as "right-sizing," or deploying a car that is specifically tailored to match occupancy needs of each particular trip. Right-sizing is cost-effective for both the fleet owner and for passengers, the researchers say, and companies and research groups are currently exploring how to efficiently manufacture small one- and two-seat vehicles. Optimal routing, smoother acceleration and braking, and a cleaner electric grid in 2030 would also contribute to lower carbon emissions. Autonomous taxis are projected to reduce emissions by 63 to 82 percent compared to hybrid cars likely to be on the road in 2030, and by 94 percent over a 2014 gasoline-powered model, the study found.PERMALINK

A newly discovered species of coral found in deep ocean waters near Hawaii can live to be more than

Leiopathes annosa, a new coral species

4,000 years old, making it the longest-living marine species ever known, scientists report in the journal Zootaxa. The new species, known as Leiopathes annosa, is a type of black coral found at depths of 1,000 to 1,600 feet throughout waters off the Hawaiian Islands, including the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Although it was previously misidentified as a species from the Mediterranean Sea, L. annosa has substantial physical differences from the Mediterranean species, say scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Smithsonian Institute. High-resolution radiocarbon dating of growth rings in the coral, much like those found in trees, showed that some L. annosa individuals can live for more than four millennia.PERMALINK

Geological Survey. The increased water demand is attributed to the development of new, water-intensive technologies that target fossil fuels in complicated geological formations, the researchers say. The amount of water used varies greatly with location, the study found. A fracking operation in southern Illinois, for example, can use as little as 2,600 gallons of water each time an oil or gas well is fracked. That figure jumps to more than 9 million gallons in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and south and eastern Texas. Fracking is often concentrated in arid regions and could exacerbate existing water shortages, especially as water requirements for fracking continue to increase. Most of the water used for fracking is disposed deep underground, removing it from the water cycle.PERMALINK

The Church of England has divested its holdings in the British oil and gas company Soco International, citing ethical concerns over Soco's attempts to

Mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park

drill for oil in Congo's Virunga National Park. The national park, Africa's oldest, is home to the largest surviving populations of endangered mountain gorillas and hippos. The Church of England's investment fund is valued at roughly $10.5 billion, and $2.5 million of that had been invested in Soco International. The move marks only the third time in recent years that the church has divested from a company on ethical grounds. In 2012 it sold its holdings in News Corporation to protest the phone-hacking scandal, and in 2010 it divested from a mining corporation over human rights violations associated with its operations in India.PERMALINK

Interview: How an Indian Politician Became an Environmental Hawk

Jairam Ramesh was a self-described “economic hawk” when he became India’s environment minister in 2009, figuring that the

Jairam Ramesh

country’s ecological problems could wait as India lifted its people out of poverty. But by the time he left his post in 2011, he had become an environmental hawk after witnessing how India’s rapidly expanding economy and soaring population had caused widespread pollution and destruction of the environment. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Ramesh — an economist, parliament member, and author of a new book — talks about why a “grow-now, pay-later” philosophy is unsuitable for India and discusses his own brand of GDP, which he calls Green Domestic Product. “In the mad rush to economic growth ... we are destroying foundations of ecological security,” he says.Read the interview.PERMALINK

Households and businesses with solar panels deliver greater benefits to utility companies than they receive through programs

Installing rooftop solar panels

like net metering, according to an analysis of 11 case studies from across the U.S. by the advocacy group Environment New York. Net metering programs credit solar panel owners at a fixed rate — equal to or less than the retail price of electricity — for providing the excess power they generate to the grid. Utility companies have been fighting those credits in recent years, saying that solar panel owners don't pay a fair share of grid maintenance and other overhead costs. However, all 11 studies showed that solar panel owners provide net benefits to their respective utility systems, Environment New York says, including reduced capital investment costs, lower energy costs, and reduced environmental compliance costs. The median value of solar power across all 11 studies was roughly 17 cents per unit, compared to the nation’s average retail electricity rate of about 12 cents.
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Collecting precipitation in rain barrels could result in significant savings for many people in India, according to an analysis of

Rain Barrels

precipitation data collected by a NASA satellite. Estimates showed that harvested rain could provide at least 20 percent of average indoor water demand, or entirely irrigate a household vegetable garden. The savings associated with a vegetable garden could be between 2,500 and 4,500 rupees per year (39 to 71 U.S. dollars) — an amount equivalent to half a year’s rent in an average 1-bedroom apartment in an Indian city. In a country where the distribution of potable water is a challenge, rainwater is an untapped resource that could provide significant benefits, the researchers write in the Urban Water Journal. PERMALINK

fuels from conventional crude sources, according to an analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Oil sands-derived fuels will release on average 20 percent more carbon into the atmosphere over their lifetime — and possibly up to 24 percent more — depending on how they are extracted and refined, the study says. Methane emissions from tailing ponds and carbon emissions from land disturbance and field operations also contribute to the higher carbon footprint. "This is important information about the greenhouse gas impact of this oil source, and this is the first time it has been made available at this level of fidelity," said Hao Cai, the Argonne researcher who led the study. Roughly 9 percent of the total crude processed in U.S. refineries in 2013 came from the Canadian oil sands, and that percentage is projected to rise to 14 percent by 2020.PERMALINK

Photo Gallery: Scenes From The Golden Age of Animal Tracking

Scientists are following the lives of animals in more detail than ever before, thanks to a new generation of tracking and tagging devices. From beluga whales that collect data on the Arctic Ocean to ducks that help track the spread of avian flu, data gathered by and about animals is being used to identify conservation hotspots, reduce human-animal conflicts, and monitor the health of the planet. In an e360 gallery, we look at some intriguing projects that have used state-of-the-art animal tracking and monitoring technology.View the gallery.PERMALINK

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e360 PHOTO GALLERY

Photographer Robert Wintner documents the exquisite beauty and biodiversity of Cuba’s coral reefs, which are largely intact thanks to stifled coastal development in the communist nation. View the gallery.

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The Warriors of Qiugang, a Yale Environment 360 video, chronicles a Chinese village’s fight against a polluting chemical plant. It was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
Watch the video.